


Never Easy

by Lunarflare14



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-03
Updated: 2012-12-03
Packaged: 2017-11-20 05:37:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/581872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunarflare14/pseuds/Lunarflare14
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>OMEGA DLC SPOILERS<br/>Shepard comes back from Omega and reports the death of the General in charge of the Cerberus occupation. She says he was too big a risk if left alive but Garrus knows something is wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Easy

Garrus knew something was wrong when Shepard came back from liberating Omega from Cerberus hands. Her debriefing was shorter than usual; details she normally put in were glossed over, she kept looking at him and looking away when their eyes met, she didn’t take questions at the end either. When it was over the other dispersed. She stayed and went to the terminal, probably going to talk to Admiral Hackett. Garrus waited outside for her. She emerged several minutes later, and looked startled to see him.

“Talk to me.” He tried to sound stern, no funny business. Instead of the fight he was waiting for she simply nodded, grabbing his hand and leading him to the elevator. It was strange, mostly because the captain never really showed outward displays that there was anything more between them then old comrades. What the hell? The ride up to her quarters was silent. Silent enough to have him worried.

The door closed behind them and clicked into place. She just stood there in the doorway looking in at her things. “Why did you go to Omega? After the fight with Saren.”

Garrus frowned. That was not what he had meant by talking. “We’ve talked about—“

“No. You told me some bullshit about regs and the Council. Now really. Why. Did. You. Go.”

Suddenly he didn’t want to talk anymore. It was the human thing to do—talk. Why had he thought this was a good idea?

She turned to him, stepping into his personal space and staring at his chest. “I met a female Turian yesterday. On Omega. She was ex-military, didn’t like their regs against biotics. She found her way to Omega, got a bit swept up in it… She died fighting Cerberus.”

“Shepard.”

“Not done. You see, she had this thing with Aria. It was obvious, even to me and you know how I am about that sort of thing. They… they reminded me of—” She inhaled deeply. “Of us.”

Garrus laughed. “Are you saying you actually saw yourself in Aria? Queen of Omega?”

Shepard hit his arm. “On the opposite end of the spectrum. The similarities though... At the last minute the turian was trying to fight off a bunch of these Reaper things and… she died.”

Garrus suddenly realized where this was going. “I’m not going anywhere, Shepard.”

The woman finally looked up at him, eyes rimmed with tears she hadn’t shed yet. “But you could have.  You went to Omega because of me.”

He froze.

“I knew it. Deep down. I thought—back then—that I was being self-centered for thinking that way. It was really me. Me dying?”

The words got caught somewhere in his throat, held back by the old ache, those two years without her.

“Me too,” she whispered. She laced her arms around his neck and squeezed. “I killed him. Where Aria wouldn’t kill that bastard, I would. I am suppose to be the diplomat and I snapped. He said I wouldn’t shoot him and that was it. I didn’t kill him because of all the people who and died or the crazy experiments. I said some bullshit about not risking him being alive.” She was shaking then and Garrus just held on as tight as he could. “I shot him because of her, that in the second before she died she looked like you. Aria tore them apart. Just dropped her gun and started slicing people with her biotics. But she didn't kill him.”

Garrus rubbed her back. “You didn't have a—“

“No. I did.”

Garrus nuzzled into her neck. “You want to know a secret?”

“What?”

“When I saw you on Omega? Alive and fighting, just like old times. When I realized you weren’t a hallucination? That’s when it hit me that you were the reason I left. I hadn’t wanted to deal with losing you. When they denounced you, I personally cursed out the turian Counselor and resigned from my Spectre training. It wasn’t the regs. When you offered... this, I would have taken anything you gave me.” It was something he hadn’t wanted to burden her with, but she was being so honest with him he couldn’t keep it from her anymore. Thousands had died around him every day on Palaven but all he thought about when he wasn’t plotting was Shepard. It was so not-turian. He was the worst turian ever.

“We are the worst saviors of the galaxy ever. So willing to fly off the rails.”

Garrus pulled back and touched his forehead to hers. “That part of me that needs you is the best part of me. I wouldn’t trade us for the world.”

Shepard laughed. “Me neither.” She leaned in and kissed him. Every time they did it Garrus liked it more and more, lips or no. It felt lie coming home.


End file.
